


The Problem With Reputations Preceding Appearances

by ALC_Punk



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Conversations of little substance, Gen, Mid-series 12 spoilers, Ruth Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25760071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: Thirteen pays an unplanned visit to Clara and Me, letting them in on a personal secret.
Kudos: 9





	The Problem With Reputations Preceding Appearances

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this for halfamoon, for the prompt "Shadow", and managed to get half-way and not have any clue how to finish. I'm mostly aware of later-season spoilers, but this one deals specifically with episode five, and is a post-episode thing. Also, I really wasn't sure where I was going with this. It's mostly quiet character introspection. And I'm not entirely sure it matches to the canon as we now know it.

Sometimes reputations outlive their applications - Sugar High, Coyote Shivers

-  
Clara has always known there was a Doctor before her Doctor(s). How far back their lives went, she wasn't aware until she stepped into his time-stream and caught glimpses of him whilst fractured into a thousand different Claras (Oswalds, Oswins, Claswalds, C'Wins). But hearing that there are others she hasn't seen, meeting a new version of the Doctor, is different. The future is always unwritten, and she has always hung desperately onto her past.

The sum of her memories, more than ever, as she dies and continues to die for a moment, a day, a century of adventures. She was stealing time as he has, will, would have. 

Even as her heart stopped, even as death crept ever closer, Clara has known that it was a constant: _the Doctor goes ever on_. Not just a thought, but a certainty. She had also assumed that he would _remember_ even if he never remembered her directly.

Now. Now, she knew that wasn't entirely true. That there could be whole worlds of memory the Doctor had locked far away, never to be found again.

"Did you know?" Clara was watching the monitor, as though she weren't focused entirely on the broken shadows of the woman who had slumped into the comfy chair she'd installed. It was her capsule, after all, and she liked a little bit of comfort at the end of an adventure. Almost better than a cup of tea for settling the self.

Clara hadn't double-checked with invasive pulse-reading or demands, but the woman was a version of the man, the men, she'd known.

The Doctor was always the Doctor, after all. No matter the outer shell. 

A bit like the TARDIS, really.

The story that had spilled out, darkness and uncertainty in the Doctor's face tugged at Clara. Made her want to take a step back, to remind herself that she had no pulse and that her adventure must come to its inevitable end. A woman she didn't remember having been, a woman who was certain she was from long before this ones ( _I'm the Thirteenth incarnation, Clara. Give or take a few halves in there, at least._ )

Either a forgotten time in her life, or a twisted future (after all, the Doctor always lies). And Clara wasn't sure which the Doctor actually hoped for.

Through the monitor, the vortex swirled in differing shades of green and gray. Sometimes lovely, sometimes insane, sometimes a soothing mist of nothingness (though that had been E-Space, according to their brief guide). It was a distraction she could afford, at times like these.

Me shifted. Hard to call her Ashildr, these days. She's so much more than the simple peasant girl she never was.

"I..."

"Don't lie to me." Anger suddenly broke out in her voice, and Clara turned to look at Me. "Don't you ever lie to me. Not about this."

Eyes closed for a moment, Me let out a breath. "I did and I didn't. You know how my memory is, Clara. I'm not a Time Lord, I don't have the capacity for billions of lifetimes."

"Don't pick at her," the Doctor interjected, looking up at Clara. "It's my own fault."

She was so terribly young, Clara thought. More than either of him had ever been, more than the ones she'd glimpsed in passing as so many Claras. Yet, if she could blame Me for the disorientation, she should blame herself for not remembering _her_.

Pushing the thought away, Clara looked down at her hands, restless on the console. "I'm from your past, perhaps she's truly from your unwritten future?"

"No." There was a certainty to her, the shadows shoved back into a box for now. Rainbows flashed a bit as she stood from the chair and looked at Clara, then Me. There was something else that was terrible in her eyes, and she looked older than he ever had. Worse than the one who had destroyed Gallifrey, but Clara wasn't going to ask. "You're still shards of my past. You vibrate in the same way she does. I do. Did."

"Would it have mattered if I could have told you?" Me asked, looking curious.

Something wry twisted the Doctor's face, and she shook her head. "Very little would have mattered, since I've no memory of her. Not yet, at least." She tapped the side of her head, "I've tried searching, but it's just not there. I'll find her again some day, just got to be patient."

The story she'd told still dragged at Clara, still made everything hurt. In an odd way, it was wrong to see this newer Doctor. She swallowed against sudden tears and found herself stepping away from the console and hugging her. The Doctor's arms wrapped around her tightly. "I'm sorry, Clara Oswald. I didn't intend--"

"Doesn't matter." Clara murmured. "I'm still making my way back. If I weren't, the universe would've ended, right?"

"Right."

"Long way round, of course," added Clara, trying to inject some cheer into the proceedings. She knew it had failed when Me made a dismissive noise from the other side of the room.

It was so odd to be nearly the same height, though even as a woman, she was still taller than Clara. Still-- she kissed her cheek and stepped back, finally letting her go.

"I'd say keep in touch," the Doctor offered.

"Yeah. Not really a good idea, is it."

"No."

Their capsule shuddered back into real-time, and Me operated the door controls. "Right on time, Doctor."

"Impeccable timing," the Doctor said, then pulled a face as though the pun was a horrible idea, or the precise landing offended her sensibilities in some way. "My fam would love that, I've never mastered it. Mostly."

Clare grinned, "Still getting lost?"

"Aren't I always?" Straightening, the Doctor looked between the two of them and nodded. "Thank you, Me. Clara."

Not until after she'd gone and the doors were closed did Clara murmur, "Until next time, Doctor."

After all, time travel made everything possible.

-f-


End file.
